![[pussywillows]](https://blog.laymusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/pussywillows.jpg?w=300&h=195)
There’s a tree across the street with pussies on it. I’m sure this is unusual for January.
![[frost]](https://blog.laymusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/img_20161225_082007.jpg?w=300&h=223)
Not of people eating and drinking and having fun, although
there was a lot of that. When that was happening, I was eating
and drinking and having fun, too. But I walked the dog on Christmas
morning, and this was the frost on the strawberry leaves in my
sister’s front yard.
The Last Knit
“When knitting becomes an obsession.”
Source: The Last Knit | Anima Vitae
Riveting 6 minutes.
A page from The First Book of Fashion
Source: Dressing for the King by Madeleine Schwartz | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books
I’ve always believed this. You can tell jokes better if you practice on your dog, too.
20 Recipes from the World of Three Pines
Source: The Nature of the Feast — Louise Penny — Minotaur Books
Those of us who like the Inspector Gamache novels of Louise Penny enjoy the descriptions of food and meals as much or more than the grisly murders. Here’s a free download of recipes for some of the food.
Someone insisted on taking a picture of me with the serpent after the rehearsal this morning. I don’t think I look as tired as I feel.
Betweeen how busy you are when you aren’t exhausted, and how
bad the network connection is, I probably won’t be posting very
much this week, but I did want to assure people that things are
going well at the Amherst
Early Music Festival.
I have mixed feelings about being “upgraded” to the
air-conditioned dorm — I’d really rather have my fan and an open
window than the noise of the air-conditioner, but the elevator and
the handicapped accessibility are good.
The double serpent case is as wonderful as I hoped it would
be. The new dorm is enough farther away from the center of things
that I’m using the wheels even though it isn’t really that
heavy.
I seem to have landed serpent-friendly coaches this year, so my
cornetto lip was used, but not overused, yesterday.
The cornetto class is particularly good — there are five of us
and yesterday’s lesson on breathing was immediately useful in my
later classes.
One of the cornetto players, whom I met in 2010, has since taken
up serpent, and so the Collegium has a serpent section!!!
I’m going this year. I’m looking forward to the cornetto class
with Nathaniel Cox, and as usual, to playing the serpent with lots
of good singers in the “Mass”.
Of course I won’t know until I get there what I’ll be doing in
the afternoon, but I’ve signed up to do German Imports and Exports
with Grant Herried, whom I like but haven’t ever had as a coach,
and the Copenhagen Part books with Wouter Verschuren, who’s the
big name dulcian player that people seem to like a lot.
For second and third choices I put Tenorlieder with Nathaniel
and Innsbruck and the Regensburg Part books with Catherine Motuz,
the sackbut faculty member whom I’ve never met.
I’m in the state of reise-fever where everytime I touch
something, I think about whether I want to take it, and if so,
what else I’d need to take with it. I’ll have the car, so I can
take more than any reasonable person would, but maybe I’ll
restrain myself.
The exciting part of packing this year is that I have my new
serpent case from Emily O’Brien of Dill Pickle Gear. It
weighs less with all three serpents in it than the old D serpent
case did empty. I’ve been fiddling with putting backpack straps
on the D rings, but it’s light enough it really might not be
necessary.
I think I’ll wait to have an assistant before posting more
pictures — the closed picture is easy enough, but you can’t
really appreciate the three layers with bright yellow and red
linings unless someone holds them open and you see what can go in
them.
Anyway, that takes care of most of the instruments, since the
third layer will probably take the renaissance recorders as well
as the tenor serpent and the cornetto.
I’ll have the laptop computer, which I tested that it would
transcribe music (using the 2-octave MIDI keyboard) when I spent a Tuesday morning in Fall River. I
used it to post to the blog from Amherst
2014, so it will still work as long as I make sure to have the
modifications I need for the wordpress.com version of the
site.
I’ll have my phone and laptop and watch as normal, so that
means I need the chargers. I’ll also bring the foot pedal that
turns pages, in case I end up playing with anyone.
I’ve been packing clothes and other necessities of daily life
for long enough that I can do that pretty automatically. Of
course, as I get older, there are more pills that count as
necessary, but not yet so many they need their own suitcase.
I still get mad about 2010
sometimes when I’m practicing, but I really believe we may have
some of those problems licked. So I’ll let you know how it goes,
but I expect to be mostly having fun instead of posting
about the terrible things that are happening to me.
This article about the changing fashions in translating Tolstoy makes a good case for sticking with Constance Garnet and the Maudes. There are numerous examples from Anna Karenina.
Source: Socks by Janet Malcolm | The New York Review of Books